


Non-Mixy Things

by anonymous_sibyl



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-04
Updated: 2006-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-04 03:52:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymous_sibyl/pseuds/anonymous_sibyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cryptic words meander now, there is a song beneath the song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Non-Mixy Things

**Author's Note:**

> BtVS, Season 3, set between The Prom and Graduation Day Part One. Summary from "Song Beneath the Song" by Maria Taylor.
> 
> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works. 

She can't possibly be old enough to have had this problem for as long as it feels like she's been having it. It's been, like, forever and a day or something, and she's, you know, tired of it. _I don't want you to leave. I wish I didn't have to leave._ Leave, leave, leave, and nobody ever says stay, because stay is a bad word, just like love and happiness, and, you know, all this sighing and sadness is totally un-slayerlike.

"Un-slayerlike?"

"Well, yeah! I mean, I should be all," Buffy gestures with her stake and Oz tilts his head to the side.

"Stakey?"

"Right! Stakey. And not all," she frowns and gestures at herself, using the stake to point at her own heart.

"Broody?"

"Yeah!"

"Vampire."

"Right! He's a vampire, and— "

"Behind you."

"Oh, right. Gimme a few."

Quip, dodge, stake, poof, and she's sitting back down next to Oz. "You ever think we're getting, like, cancer or something, from all this dust?"

"Huh."

"Can't be good," she says, sneezing out the recently departed. "Breathing in dead guy is just gross."

"Angel," he says.

"Where?" She's up and on her feet, smoothing down her hair before she can help herself. "Behind me?"

Oz laughs, or maybe he chuckles, whatever he does it sure isn't a guffaw, or, like, a snigger. Xander sniggers. Guffaws, too. Willow giggles, and, once, Buffy's pretty sure she tittered. Cordelia totally snorts.

"Topic. Back on topic."

"Oh! Right. Angel. All topic-y, that's what he is."

"We don't have to," Oz says.

"No. I mean, yes. I should." She sits back down and stretches her legs out in front of her. "Right? Should I?"

"Maybe." He snatches the stake she's been tossing from hand to hand out of the air, then, quick as a wink, tosses it back to her. "Did he ever ask you what you want?"

That's a new one. Nobody asks what she wants. For a while she was just Buffy and that's all she was, and it's not as if her parents cared much, as long as she didn't die or burn down the school, or… Oopsie. Anyway, then she was the capital-S Slayer and it's not like that was a choice or anything either.

"Chosen One," she says, like that's an answer.

Oz nods as if it is.

"I can't make him happy." Oz frowns at her and she thinks he thinks she's lying. "I mean, I can make him happy--Buffy, totally with the happy-making--but I can't, because if I do he gets all…" She makes the international gesture for vampire by hooking two fingers pointing down in front of her mouth. "Grr."

"Friends?"

"Can't."

"Makes him happy?"

"No. I mean yes! But no, not in that way."

"Right."

"It's hard," she says, and blushes slightly at the unintentional entendre. Oz grins and she laughs. "Well, it totally is! Have you looked at him?"

"He's a handsome vampire." Oz nods his head. "Nice shirts."

"Right! So he's handsome, and really sweet, and we've already been all…"

"Together," he fills in.

"Together! And it's hard to, well, not."

"Hence all the leaving."

She sighs and buries her face in her hands. "I don't want to be responsible for any more dead people."

"Slayer," he says.

"What?" She faces him and frowns quizzically. "I don't… I mean, I don't understand."

"You're the Slayer."

"Yeah? And?"

"Aren't you already responsible?"

Wow. Because, see, she is. She's responsible for all the ones who died and all the ones who didn't, and Angelus or not Angelus, she'd still be responsible. "You're right."

"Yeah."

"So what do I do?"

He puts his hand on her shoulder, and it's warm through her lacey shirt. Extremely unsuitable for slaying, Giles would say. You look pretty, Angel would say. Xander would just say, ooh, Buff. Oz, though, he doesn't say a thing, just rests his hand there in comfort.

"You do what makes you happy. You do what's right." He squeezes her shoulder once. "Vampire."

"Right, and I'm the Slayer."

"No." He grins. "Behind you again. Do what's right, Buffy."

So she does.


End file.
